Robitussin de Jour
by HarmZuay
Summary: Greg has a cold, Warrick loses a bet, Sara finds some coffee...


Disclaimer: I do not own CSI: Crime Scene Investigation or any of its characters. They belong to Anthony Zuiker and CBS. This is purely for entertainment purposes.  
  
Summary: Greg has a cold, Warrick loses a bet, Sara finds some coffee...  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Author's Notes: This is my first actual story for CSI. Please R&R and don't flame me. I've forever been a fan of CSI and have read countless stories, but have never written one until now. I was trying to write one for a few weeks and finally decided "to hell with it" and wrote most of this in one sitting. Which may be why the beginning doesn't seem quite the same as the rest of it...  
  
"Robitussin de Jour"  
  
--- --- --- --- ---  
  
"All day staring at the ceiling  
  
Making friends with shadows on my wall.  
  
All night hearing voices telling me  
  
That I should get some sleep  
  
Because tomorrow might be good for something.  
  
Hold on-  
  
Feeling like I'm headed for a breakdown  
  
And I don't know why."  
  
-Matchbox 20  
  
--- --- --- --- ---  
  
The wail of sirens woke him. Not that he had really been sleeping in the first place, but it was as good an excuse as any to get up. Greg Sanders rolled over in bed and groaned when he consulted his clock- it was only 2:30PM, far earlier than he normally rose. Contemplating whether or not to try to go back to sleep or not, he decided it was a toss up: There was no doubt in his mind that if he got up now, he'd be feeling the effects near the end of his shift. On the other hand, he doubted he'd get much more sleep today. Not with this cough.  
  
He'd noticed the onset of it a little over a week ago, but had dismissed it as a cold, or maybe allergies. Now it was back with a vengeance. Finally reaching a conclusion, Greg heaved himself out of bed and stumbled over to the window. Giving the shade a vicious yank, he sent it reeling up, allowing harsh bright light to spill into the room. He squinted and made a face before trudging over to his sparsely furnished kitchenette.   
  
"And the Soup of the Day is... Robitussin de Jour. Yum," he mumbled halfheartedly, and proceeded to choke down the syrupy cherry liquid. "There has definitely been a decline in the quality of artificial cherry flavoring over the years." Hmm, he was talking to himself. That couldn't be good, could it? But he was having misgivings about talking to himself, so he figured it was probably okay. An insane person wouldn't find anything strange about having a conversation with them self. Besides, he was funny.   
  
With a final glare at the offending cough medicine, he crashed on the couch to watch the rerun of the X Games from the previous night. He was in the middle of the BMX Bike Stunt Park Finals when the phone rang, startling him. Distractedly, he snatched the receiver and mumbled a quick, "Sanders."  
  
"Hey, Greg. This is Warrick. Hope I didn't wake you."  
  
"Nope, I was already up. I just-- No! Aww please, no!"  
  
"Wha? You okay there Greggo?" Warrick asked, an edge of concern creeping into his voice.  
  
"Ohh man... Nyquist just lost it again. That's the third time this run!"  
  
"Christ, Greg. Are you still watching that competition?"  
  
"Yeeeah. Tell you what, I'll give you twenty on Koston going all the way for Skateboard Park tonight."  
  
"Over Andrade?" Warrick paused to consider. "Yeah, I'll take that. Anyway, Grissom wants you to come in early today, if you're up to it. Day shift's up to their noses in evidence and we've got more coming in."  
  
"Uh, yeah. Guess I can. When does he want me in?"  
  
"Twenty minutes ago," Warrick replied, almost apologetically.  
  
"Ugh. I'll get there as soon as I can. You already there?"  
  
"Yeah, he's got me and Sara. Man, I'm telling you, he's out for blood today."  
  
"Sounds like it. See ya in twenty."  
  
With a dramatic sigh, Greg paused the tape and glowered at Ryan Nyquist's frozen form. "I am disgraced. So much that I refuse to watch you fall anymore. I'm gonna watch your second run tomorrow, and it better be better," he grumbled, shutting off the TV. "Better be better. Heh. Better. Butter." He blinked. "Wow. I need coffee."   
  
--- --- --- --- ---  
  
Upon walking through the double doors of the Las Vegas Crime Lab, Greg could see that Grissom was indeed on the warpath. As he began to shoulder his way through the bustling CSIs and technicians of the day shift toward his lab, they suddenly scurried toward the walls of the corridor, parting like the Red Sea before Moses himself. "Cool." He continued onward with a bit more of a bounce in his step until he became aware that he wasn't the proverbial Moses. Grissom was.  
  
"Greg glad to see you I need this evidence processed now thanks get to work." Just like that, in one breath. Glancing down, Greg saw the large cardboard box in Grissom's hands and picked it up. With that, Grissom turned and strode the way he had come, back into the bowels of the lab.  
  
"Yeah, I'm just great, thanks for asking. How are you?" Greg muttered bitterly as he headed toward the DNA Lab. He knew Grissom had nothing personal against him, well besides their musical vendetta. He was probably just as peeved at being called in this early as Greg was. His mood was lifted slightly as he entered his lab and found not the regular dayshift technician, but Sara Sidle.  
  
"Thank God you're here, Greggo. Wouldn't you know the days tech didn't bother to call in sick until two hours after shift started. Now I've been working on these samples for the last hour and CODIS is being an ass." She angrily thwacked the machine with a rolled up copy of some magazine.  
  
"Whoa, killer. Slow down." Carefully, Greg slid the magazine out of Sara's grasp and smiled brightly. "Hey, that's where I put this month's Sand & Surf. Anyway, here's where you're wrong. It's all in the wrist."   
  
"Huh?"  
  
He whacked CODIS and was rewarded with a loud buzz. Then it shut down. "Oh crap."   
  
"All in the wrist, huh, Greggy?" Sara asked with a smirk.  
  
"Uh... It usually works." Seeing as he had no idea what went wrong, he settled for searching his mind for something witty to say. "Don't tell Grissom."   
  
--- --- --- --- ---  
  
Twenty minutes and severe thwackage later Greg has successfully gotten CODIS up and running and was finally able to begin running the DNA samples against those in the database. He was nearly a third of the way through when Sara returned from the break room with two steaming cups of coffee. "Any luck?"  
  
Greg grinned mischievously. "Let's find out. You wanna grab dinner before real shift starts?"  
  
"Um, no. On second thought, maybe Warrick needs caffeine more than you."  
  
"Going great, got a match on the blood from the bed, so far nothing on the semen. Coffee now?" he pleaded.  
  
With a sigh, Sara handed him one of the mugs and he proceeded to spin happily about in his chair until he spilled some on his leg and cursed loudly. "Maybe if you would drink it first, enjoy the caffeine high later?" Sara offered.  
  
"Yeah, that'd be good. Hey! This is my Blue Hawaiian."  
  
"Uh-huh. Made it just for you."  
  
"Cool. Thanks." He took another gulp of the steaming liquid. "Wait a sec. How did you find it?"  
  
"Uh... Warrick?"  
  
"He is so dead!" Greg charged out of his lab and down the hallway, leaving Sara to chuckle quietly.  
  
--- --- --- --- ---  
  
"Dude, I can't believe you!"  
  
"What?" Warrick looked up from the fibers under the scope and turned to face Greg.  
  
"You not only found my coffee, but told Sara where it was!" He took another sip and suddenly sneezed spraying it across the room.  
  
"My sample!" Warrick growled, checking the slide for any residue.  
  
"My sinuses!" Greg moaned pitifully. "It was hot."  
  
Warrick rolled his eyes. "One: I never found your secret stash. Two: if I had, I would've told Nick, not Sara. Three: if you don't get out of here right now, your nose will not be the only thing that hurts."  
  
"Fine. Pay up by 11."  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"11. That's when Koston is gonna nail his run and head home with the gold. Or at least more than Andrade."  
  
"Whatever you say, man. Now, out. I don't want to explain why I need to go back to the scene for evidence I already collected."  
  
--- --- --- --- ---   
  
Later that night when days had finally cleared out, Greg bounced into the break room, results in hand. "I've got something for you," he practically sang.  
  
Nick and Sara looked up from their food. "Sweet. You got results, man?" the Texan drawled.   
  
"Wouldn't you like to know." He smiled slyly.   
  
"Aww, come on, Greggo."  
  
Greg shook his head. "Only when Sara tells me what she did with my coffee. I just checked and it's not even there anymore."   
  
She grimaced. "It's in your locker, Greg. I found it on the counter this morning after you'd already left."  
  
"Oh. In that case the DNA matches Brandon Carlson of 517 Verde Dr." Looking dejected he headed back toward his lab.  
  
"Greg! Wait up." Sara ran out after him. "Look, I know you've been feeling kinda lousy and, well, I've got something for you too."  
  
"Really?" His eyes lit up as she leaned in closer.  
  
"Yep," she whispered seductively into his ear.  
  
The room seemed to spark with electricity as Greg closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable. "Greg. Greg?" Sara sounded slightly annoyed.  
  
"What?" He couldn't understand why she was breaking the prefect atmosphere the lab was creating.  
  
"Open your eyes."  
  
Oh crap, he thought. What if it's Grissom? Or Nick? Fearing for the worst, he opened them and looked around.  
  
"Here." Sara was handing him a brown paper bag of sorts. "Warrick put some cash in there too, said he owed you for something."  
  
"Oh. Thanks." He was slightly disappointed over the lack of kiss, but opened the bag and sure enough, there were two tens and a five. Wrapped around a bottle of Robitussin. "Saaaaara!" 


End file.
